Anderson, Poul - Flandry 02 - Flandry Of Terra

127 Pages·2016·0.52 MB·English

by  Anderson Poul

FLANDRY OF TERRA
Poul Anderson
[12 apr 2002-scanned for #bookz]
[18 apr 2002-proofed by Sun]
THE GAME OF GLORY
A murdered man on a winter planet gave Flandry his first clue. Until then, he had only
known that a monster fled Conjumar in a poisoned wreck of a spaceship, which might have gone
twenty light-years before killing its pilot but could surely never have crossed the Spican marches
to refuge.
And the trouble was, even for the Terran Empire, which contained an estimated four million
stars, a sphere twenty light-years across held a devil's number of suns.
Flandry went through the motions. He sent such few agents as could be spared from other
jobs, for they were desperately under-manned in the frontier provinces, to make inquiries on the
more likely planets within that range. Of course they drew blanks. Probability was stacked
against them. Even if they actually visited whatever world the fugitive had landed on, he would
be lying low for a while.
Flandry swore, recalled his men to more urgent tasks, and put the monster under filed-but-
not-forgotten. Two years went by. He was sent to Betelgeuse and discovered how to lie to a
telepath. He slipped into the Merseian Empire itself, wormed and blackmailed until he found a
suitable planet (uninhabited, terrestroid, set aside as a hunting preserve of the aristocrats) and got
home again: whereafter the Terran Navy quietly built an advanced base there and Flandry
wondered if the same thing had happened on his side of the fence. He went to Terra on leave, was
invited to the perpetual banquet of the Lyonid family, spent three epochal months, and was never
quite sure whether he seduced the wrong man's wife or she him. At any rate, he fought a reluctant
duel, gave up hope of early promotion to rear admiral, and accepted re-assignment to the Spican
province.
Thus it was he found himself on Brae.
This world had been more or less independent until a few months ago. Then military
considerations forced the establishment of a new base in the region. It did not have to be Brae,
but Brae was asked, by a provincial governor who thought its people would be delighted at the
extra trade and protection. The Braean High Temple, which had long watched its old culture and
religion sapped by Terran influence, declined. One does not decline an Imperial invitation. It was
repeated. And again it was refused. The provincial governor insisted. Brae said it would go over
his head and appeal to the Emperor himself. The governor, who did not want attention drawn to
his precise mode of government, called for local Navy help.
Wherefore Flandry walked through smashed ruins under a red dwarf sun, with a few
snowflakes falling like blood drops out of great clotted clouds. He was directing the usual project
in cases like this-search, inquiry, more search, more interrogation, until the irreconcilables had
been found and exiled, the safely collaboration-minded plugged into a governmental framework.
But when the blaster crashed, he whirled and ran toward the noise as if to some obscure
salvation.
"Sir!" cried the sergeant of his escort. "Sir, not there-snipers, terrorists-wait.'"
Flandry leaped the stump of a wall, zigzagged across a slushy street, and crouched behind a
wrecked flyer. His own handgun was out, weaving around; his eyes flickered in habitual caution.
On a small plaza ahead of him stood a squad of Imperial marines. They must have been on
routine patrol when someone had fired at them from one of the surrounding houses. They
responded with tiger precision. A tracer dart, flipped from a belt almost the moment the shot
came, followed the trail of ions to a certain facade. A rover bomb leaped from its shoulder-borne
rack, and the entire front wall of the house went up in shards. Before the explosion ended, the
squad attacked. Some of the debris struck their helmets as they charged.
Flandry drifted to the plaza. He saw now why the men's reaction was to obliterate: it was an
invariable rule when a marine was bushwacked dead.
He stooped over the victim. This was a young fellow, African-descended, with husky
shoulders; but his skin had gone gray. He gripped his magnetic rifle in drilled reflex (or was it
only a convulsive clutching at his mother's breast, as a dying man's mouth will try to suck again?)
and stared through frog-like goggles on a turtle-like helmet. He was not, after all, dead yet. His
blood bubbled from a stomach ripped open, losing itself in muddy snow. Under that dim sun, it
looked black.
Flandry glanced up. His escort had surrounded him, though their faces turned wistfully
toward the crump-crump of blasters and bomb guns. They were marines too.
"Get him to a hospital," said Flandry.
"No use, sir," answered the sergeant. "He'd be dead before we arrived. We've no revival
equipment here yet, either, or stuff to keep him functional till they can grow another belly on
him."
Flandry nodded and hunkered down by the boy. "Can I help you son?" he asked, as gently as
might be.
The wide lips shinned back from shining teeth. "Ah, ah, ah," he gasped. "It's him in Uhunhu
that knows." The eyes wallowed in their sockets. "Ai!" 'List nay, they said. Nay let recruiters 'list
you ... damned Empire ... even to gain warskill, don't 'list ... shall freedom come from slave-
masters, asked he in Uhunhu. He and his 'ull teach what we must know, see you?" The boy's free
hand closed wildly on Flandry's. "D'you understand?"
"Yes," said Flandry. "It's all right. Go to sleep."
"Ai, ai, look at her up there, grinning-" Despite himself, Flandry stared skyward. He was
crouched by a fountain, which now held merely icicles. A slender column rose from the center,
and on top of it the nude statue of a girl. She was not really human, she had legs too long, and a
tail and pouch and sleek fur, but Flandry had not often seen such dancing loveliness trapped in
metal; she was springtime and a first trembling kiss under windy poplars. The waning marine
screamed.
"Leave me 'lone, leave me 'lone, you up there, leave me "lone! Stop grinning! I 'listed for to
learn how to make Nyanza free, you hear up there, don't lap my blood so fast. It's nay my fault I
made more slaves. I wanted to be free too! Get your teeth out of me, girl ... mother, mother, don't
eat me, mother-" Presently the boy died.
Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps, Imperial Terrestrial Navy, squatted beside
him, under the fountain, while the marines blew down another house or two for good measure. A
squadron of full-armored infantry did a belt-flit overhead, like jointed faceless dolls. A stringed
instrument keened from a window across the square: Flandry did not know the Braean scale, the
music might be dirge or defiance or ballad or coded signal.
He asked finally: "Anyone know where this chap was from?"
His escort looked blank. "A colonial, sir, judging from the accent," ventured one of the
privates. "We sign on a lot, you know."
"Tell me more," snapped Flandry. He brooded a while longer. "There'll be records, of
course."
His task had suddenly shifted. He would have to leave another man in charge here and check
the dead boy's home himself, so great was the personnel shortage. Those delirious babblings
could mean much or nothing. Most likely nothing, but civilization was spread hideously thin out
here, where the stars faded toward barbarism, and the Empire of Merseia beyond, and the great
unmapped Galactic night beyond that.
As yet he did not think of the monster, only that he was lonesome among his fellow
conquerors and would be glad to get off on a one-man mission. At least a world bearing some
Africans might be decently warm.
He shivered and got up and left the square. His escort trudged around him, their slung rifles
pointed at a thin blue sky. Behind them the girl on the fountain smiled.
II
The planet was five parsecs from Brae. It was the third of an otherwise uninteresting F5
dwarf, its official name was Nyanza, it had been colonized some 500 years back during the
breakup of the Commonwealth. It had been made an Imperial client about a century ago, a few
abortive revolts were crushed, now there was only a resident-which meant a trouble-free but
unimportant and little visited world. The population was estimated at I07. That was all the
microfiles had to say about Nyanza.
Flandry had checked them after identifying the murdered man, who turned out to be Thomas
Umbolu, 19, free-born commoner of Jairnovaunt on Nyanza, no dependents, no personal oaths or
obligations of fealty, religion "Christian variant," height 1.82 meter, weight 84 kilos, blood type
O plus ... His service record was clean, though only one year old. A routine pre-induction hypno
had shown no serious disaffection; but of course that hadn't meant a damn thing since the
techniques of deep conditioning became general knowledge; it was just another bureaucratic
ritual.
Flandry took a high-speed flitter and ran from Brae. Even so, the enforced idleness of the trip
was long enough to remind him acutely that he had been celibate for weeks. He spent a good deal
of the time in calisthenics. It bored him rigid, but a trim body had saved his life more than once
and made it easy to get bed partners on softened worlds like Terra.
When the robopilot said they were going into approach, he spent some while dressing
himself. An Intelligence officer had wide latitude as regards uniforms, and Flandry took more
advantage of it than most. After due consideration, he clad his tall form in peacock-blue tunic,
with white cross-belts and as much gold braid as regulations would stand; red sash and matched
guns, needler and blaster; iridescent white trousers; soft black boots of authentic Terran
beefleather. He hung a scarlet cloak from his shoulders and cocked a winged naval cap on his
long sleek head. Surveying himself in the mirror, he saw a lean sunlamp-browned face, gray eyes,
seal-brown hair and mustache, straight nose, high cheekbones: yes, he knew his last
plasmecosmetic job had made his face too handsome, but somehow never got around to changing
it again. He put a cigarette between his lips, adjusted its jaunty angle with care, inhaled it to light,
and went to his pilot's seat. Not that he had anything to do with the actual piloting.
Nyanza shone before him, the clearest and most beautiful blue of his life, streaked with white
cloud-belts and shuddering with great auroral streamers. He spotted two moons, a smallish one
close in and a large one further out. He scowled. Where were the land masses? His robot made
radio contact and the screen offered him a caucasoid face above a short-sleeved shirt.
"Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Navy Intelligence, requesting permission to land."
Sometimes he wondered what he would do if his polite formula ever met a rude no.
The visage gaped. "Oh ... oh ... already?"
"Hm?" said Flandry. He caught himself. "Ah, yes," he said wisely.
"But only today, sal" babbled the face. "Why, we haven't even thought about sending a
courier out yet-it's been such a nightmare-oh, thank God you're here, sir! You'll see for yourself,
at once, there isn't a Technician in the City-on Altla-on all Nyanza, who doesn't set loyalty to his
Majesty above life itself!"
"I'm sure his Majesty will be very much relieved," said Flandry. "Now, if you please, how
about a landing beam?" After a pause, a few clicks, and the beginning downward rush of his ship:
"Oh, by the way, Bubbles. Where did you put your continents today?"
"Continents, sir?"
"You know. Large dirty places to stand on."
"Of course I know, sir!" The control man drew himself up. "We're no parochials in the City.
I've been to Spica myself."
"Would it be despicable if you had not?" mused Flandry. Most of him was listening to the
fellow's accent. The inexhaustible variations on Anglic were a hobby of his.
"But as for the continents, sir, why, I thought you would know. Nyanza has none. Altla is
just a medium-sized island. Otherwise there are only rocks and reefs, submerged at double high
tide, or even at Loa high."
"Oh, I knew," said Flandry reassuringly. "I just wanted to be sure you knew." He turned off
the receiver and sat thinking. Damn those skimpy pilot's manuals! He'd have had to go to Spica
for detailed information. If only there were a faster-than-light equivalent of radio. Instant
communications unified planets; but the days and weeks and months between stars let their
systems drift culturally apart-let hell brew for years, unnoticed till it boiled over-made a slow
growth of feudalism, within the Imperial structure itself, inevitable. Of course, that would give
civilization something to fall back on when the Long Night finally came.
The spaceport was like ten thousand minor harbors: little more than a grav-grid, a field, and
some ancillary buildings, well out of town. Beyond the hangars, to west and south, Flandry saw a
greenness of carefully tended forest. Eastward rose the spires of a small ancient city. Northward
the ground sloped down in harsh grass and boulders until it met a smothering white surf and an
impossibly blue ocean. The sky above was a little darker than Terra's-less dust to scatter light-and
cloudless; the sun was blindingly fierce, bluish tinged. It was local summer: Altla lay at 35° N.
latitude on a Terra-sized planet with a 21° axial tilt. The air held an illusion of being cooler than
it was, for it blew briskly and smelled of salt and the ultraviolet-rich sun gave it a thunderous
tinge of ozone.
Still, Flandry wished he had not been quite such a dude. The portmaster, another blond
caucasoid, looked abominably comfortable in shorts, blouse, and kepi. Flandry took a morose
satisfaction in noting that the comfort was merely physical.
"Portmaster Heinz von Sonderburg, sir, at your service. Naturally, we waive quarantine on
your behalf; no Imperial knight would-Ah. Your luggage will be seen to, Captain ... Flandry? Of
course. Most honored. I have communicated with her Excellency and am happy to report she can
offer you the usual official hospitality. Otherwise we would have had to do our poor best for you
in the City-"
"Her Excellency?" asked Flandry when they were airborne.
"Is that not the proper usage?" Von Sonderburg made washing motions with his hands. "Oh,
dear, I am so sorry. This is such an isolated planet-the occasion so seldom arises-Believe me, sir,
we are uncouth only in manner. The City, at least, has an enlightened forward-looking spirit of
absolute loyalty to the Imperium which-"
"It's just that I thought, in a case like this, where the only Terrans on the planet are the
resident and family, they'd have appointed a man." Flandry looked down toward the city. It was
old, haphazardly raised out of native stone, with steep narrow streets, teeming pedestrians, very
few cars or flyers.
But the docks were big, sleekly modern and aswarm with ships. He made out everything
from plastic pirogues to giant submarines. There was a majority of sailing craft, which implied an
unhurried esthetic-minded culture; but they were built along radical hydrodynamic lines, which
meant that the culture also appreciated efficiency. A powered tug was leaving the bay with a long
tail of loaded barges, and air transport was extensively in use.
Elsewhere Flandry recognized a set of large sea-water processing units and their attached
factories, where a thousand dissolved substances were shaped into usefulness. A twin-hulled
freighter was unloading bales of ... sea weed? ... at the dock of an obvious plastics plant. So, he
thought, most of Nyanza fished, hunted, and ranched the planet-wide ocean; this one island took
the raw materials and gave back metal, chemical fuel, synthetic timbers and resins and glassites
and fibers, engines. He was familiar enough with pelagic technics-most overpopulated worlds
turned back at last to Mother Ocean. But here they had begun as sailors, from the very first. It
should make for an interesting society ...
Von Sonderburg's voice jerked back his attention. "But of course, poor Freeman Bannerji
was a man. I am merely referring to his, ah, his relict, poor Lady Varvara. She is an Ayres by
birth, you know, the Ayres of Antarctica. She has borne her loss with the true fortitude of
Imperial aristocratic blood, yes, we can be very proud to have been directed by the late husband
of Lady Varvara Ayres Bannerji."
Flandry constructed his sentence to preserve the illusion: "Do you know the precise time he
died?"
"Alas, no, sir. You can speak to the City constabulary, but I fear even they would have no
exact information. Sometime last night, after he retired. You understand, sir, we have not your
advanced police methods here. A harpoon gun-oh, what a way to meet one's final rest!" Von
Sonderburg shuddered delicately.
"The weapon has not been found?" asked Flandry impassively.
"No, I do not believe so, sir. The killer took it with him, portable, you know. He must have
crept up the wall with vacsoles, or used a flung grapnel to catch the windowsill and-His
Excellency was a sound sleeper and his lady, ah, preferred separate quarters. Ah ... you can take it
for granted, sir, I am certain, that the murderer did not go through the house to reach Freeman
Bannerji's retiring chamber. The servants are all of Technician birth, and no Technician would
dream of it.'
The resident's mansion hove into view. It was probably 75 years old, but its metal and tinted
plastic remained a blatant, arrogant leap in formal gardens, amidst a shrill huddle of tenements.
As the aircar set down, Flandry noticed that the City population was mostly caucasoid, not even
very dark-skinned. They were crowded together in child-pullulating streets, blowsy-women
waved excited arms and shouted their hagglings, such of the men as did not work in industry kept
grimy little shops. A pair of native constables in helmet and breastplate stood guard at the
mansion gates. Those were tall Africans, who used stepped-down shockbeams with a sort of
casual contempt to prevent loitering.
Lady Varvara was caucasoid herself, though the Chinese strain in the Ayres pedigree showed
in dark hair and small-boned body. She posed, exquisite in a simple white mourning gown,
beside a full-length stereo of her late husband. Hurri Chundra Bannerji had been a little brown
middle-aged Terran with wistful eyes: doubtless the typical fussy, rule-bound, conscientious civil
servant whose dreams of a knighthood die slowly over the decades. And now he was murdered.
Flandry bowed over Lady Varvara's frail hand. "Your Ladyship," he said, "accept my most
heartfelt sympathy, and grant me forgiveness that I must intrude at a moment of such loss."
"I am glad you came," she whispered. "So very glad."
It had a shaken sincerity that almost upset Flandry's court manners. He backed off with
another ritual bow. "You must not trouble yourself further, your Ladyship. Let me deal with the
authorities."
"Authorities!" The word was a bitter explosion among her few thin pieces of Terran crystal.
Otherwise the room was dominated by the conch-whorls of an art that had not seen Earth in
centuries.' 'What authorities? Did you bring a regiment with you?"
"No." Flandry glanced around the long low-ceilinged room. A noiseless City-bred butler had
just placed decanter and glasses by the trellis-wall which opened on the garden. When he left,
there did not seem to be anyone else in earshot. Flandry took out his cigarettes and raised his
brows inquiringly at the woman. He saw she was younger than himself.
Her colorless lips bent into a smile. "Thank you," she said, so low he could almost not hear
it.
"Eh? For what, your Ladyship? I'm afraid it's a frosty comfort to have me here."
"Oh, no," she said. She moved closer. Her reactions were not wholly natural: too calm and
frank for a new-made widow, then suddenly and briefly too wild. A heavy dose of mysticine, he
guessed. It was quite the thing for upper-class Imperials to erect chemical walls against grief, or
fear or- What do you do when the walls come down? he thought.
"Oh, no," repeated Lady Varvara. Her words flowed quick and high-pitched. "Perhaps you
do not understand, Captain. You are the first Terran I have seen, besides my husband, for ... how
long? Something like three Nyanzan years, and that's about four Terran. And then it was just a
red-faced military legate making a routine check. Otherwise, who did we see? The City Warden
and his officers paid a few courtesy calls every year. The sea chiefs had to visit us too when they
happened to be on Altla ... not for our sake, you understand, not to curry favor, only because it
was beneath their dignity not to observe the formalities. Their dignity!" Her cheeks flamed. She
stood close to him now glaring upward; her fists drew the skin tight over bird-like knuckles. "As
you would feel obliged to notice the existence of an unwelcome guest!"
"So the Empire is not popular here?" murmured Flandry.
"I don't know," she said pallidly, relaxing. "I don't know. All I know is the only people we
ever saw, with any regularity-our only friends, God help us, friends!-were the Lubbers."
"The what, my lady?"
"City people. Technicians. Pinkskins. Whatever you want to call them. Like that fat little von
Sonderburg." She was shrill again. "Do you know what it's like, Captain, to associate with no one
but an inferior class? It rubs off on you. Your soul gets greasy. Von Sonderburg now ... always
toadying up to Hurri Chundra ... he would never light a cigar in my presence without asking me,
in the most heavy way-exactly the same words, I have heard them a million times, till I could
scream-'Does my lady object if I have a little smoke?' "
Varvara whirled from him. Her bare shoulders shuddered. "Does my lady object? Does my
lady object? And then you come, Captain-your lungs still full of Earth air, I swear-you come and
take out a cigarette case and raise your eyebrows. Like that. No more. A gesture we all used at
Home, a ritual, an assumption that I have eyes to see what you're doing and intelligence to know
what you want-Oh, be welcome, Captain Flandry, be welcome!" She gripped the trellis with both
hands and stared out into the garden. "You're from Terra," she whispered. "I'll come to you
tonight, any time, right now if you want, just to repay you for being a Terran."
Flandry tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail, put it to his lips at half mast, and drew deeply.
He glanced at the sad brown eyes of Hurri Chundra Bahnerji and said without words: Sorry, old
chap. I'm not a ghoul, and I'll do what I can to avoid this, but my job demands I be tactful. For the
Empire and the Race
"I'm sorry to intrude when you're overwrought, your Ladyship," he said. "Of course, I'll
arrange for your passage to provincial headquarters, and if you want to return Home from there-"
"After all these years," she mumbled, "who would I know?"
"Uh ... may I suggest my lady, that you rest for a while-?"
An intercom chime saved both of them. Varvara said a shaky "Accept" and the connection
closed.
The butler's voice came: "Beg pardon, madam, but I have just received word of a
distinguished native person who has arrived. Shall I ask postponement of the formal visit?"
"Oh ... I don't know." Varvara's tone was dead. She did not look at Flandry. "Who is it?"
"Lady Tessa Hoorn, madam, Lightmistress of Little Skua in Jairnovaunt."
III
When they reached the Zurian Current, the water, which had been a Homeric blue, turned
deep purple, streaked with foam that flashed like crystallized snow. "This bends to north beyond
Iron Shoals and carries on past the Reefs of Sorrow," remarked Tessa Hoorn. "Gains us a few
knots speed. Though we've naught to hurry for, have we?"
Flandry blinked through dark contact lenses at the incredible horizon. Sunlight glimmered
off the multitudinous laughter of small waves. "I suppose the color is due to plankton," he said.
"Plankton-like organisms," corrected Tessa. "We're nay on Earth, Captain. But aye, off this
feed the oilfish, and off them the decapus, both of use to us." She pointed. "Yonder flags bear
Dilolo stripes, quartered on Saleth green: the fishing boats of the Prince of Aquant."
Flandry's dazzled eyes could hardly even see the vessels, in that merciless illumination.
Since the wind dropped, the Hoorn ship had been running on its auxiliary engine and now there
was no shade from the great sails. An awning was spread amidships and some superbly muscled
deck hands sprawled under it, clapping time to an eerie chant-pipe, like young gods carved in
oiled ebony. The Terran would have given much for some of that shadow. But since Tessa Hoorn
stood here in the bows, he must admit. It was an endurance contest, he recognized, with all the
advantages on her side.
"Does your nation fish this current too?" he asked.
"A little," she nodded. "But mostly we in Jairnovaunt sail west and north, with harpoons for
the kraken-ha, it's a pale life never to have speared fast to a beast with more of bulk than your
own ship and smaller game. Then T'chaka Kruger farms a great patch of beanweed in the Lesser
Sargasso. And in sooth I confess, not alone the commons but some captains born will scrape the
low-tide reefs for shells or dive after sporyx. Then there are carpenters, weavers, engineers,
medics, machinists, all trades that must be plied: and mummers and mimes, though most such
sport is given by wandering boats of actors, masterless madcap folk who come by as fancy strikes
'em." She shrugged broad shoulders. "The Commander can list you all professions in his realm if
you wish it, Imperial."
Flandry regarded her with more care than pleasure. He had not yet understood her attitude.
Was it contempt, or merely hatred?
The sea people of Nyanza were almost entirely African by descent, which meant that perhaps
three-fourths of their ancestors had been negroid, back when more or less "pure" stocks still
existed. In a world of light, more actinic than anything on Earth, reflected off water, there had
been a nearly absolute selection for dark coloring: not a Nyanzan outside the city on Altla was
any whiter than the ace of spades. Otherwise genes swapped around pretty freely-kinky hair,
broad noses, and full lips were the rule, but with plenty of exceptions. Tessa's hair formed a soft,
tightly curled coif around her ears; her nostrils flared, in a wide arch-browed face, but the bridge
was aquiline. Without her look of inbred haughtiness, it would have been a wholly beautiful face.
The rest of her was even more stunning, almost as tall as Flandry, full-breasted, slim-waisted, and
muscled like a Siamese cat. She wore merely a gold medallion of rank on her forehead, a belt
with a knife, and the inevitable aqualung on her back ... which left plenty on view to admire. But
even in plumes and gown and rainbow cloak, she had been a walking shout as she entered the
resident's mansion.
However, thought Dominic Flandry, that word "stunning" can be taken two ways. I am not
about to make a pass at the Lightmistress of Little Skua.
He asked cautiously: "Where are the Technicians from?"
"Oh, those." A faint sneer flickered on her red mouth. "Well, see you, the firstcomers here
settled on Altla, but then as more folk came in, space was lacking, so they began to range the sea.
That proved so much better a life that erelong few cared to work on land. Most came from
Deutschwelt, as it happened. When we had enough of yon ilk, and knew they'd breed, we closed
the sluice, for they dare nay work as sailors, they get skin sicknesses, and Altla has little room."
"I should think they'd be powerful on the planet, what with the essential refineries and-"
"Nay, Captain. Altla and all thereon is owned in common by the true Nyanzan nations. The
Technicians are but hirelings. Though in sooth, they've a sticky way with money and larger bank
accounts than many a skipper. That's why we bar them from owning ships."
Flandry glanced down at himself. He had avoided the quasi-uniform of the despised class
and had packed outfits of blouse, slacks, zori, and sash for himself; the winged cap sat on his
head bearing the sunburst of Empire. But he could not evade the obvious fact, that his own
culture was more Lubberly than pelagic. And an Imperial agent was often hated, but must not
ever allow himself to be despised. Hence Flandry cocked a brow (Sardonic Expression 22-C, he
thought) and drawled:
"I see. You're afraid that, being more intelligent, they'd end up owning every ship on the
planet."
He could not see if she flushed, under the smooth black sweat-gleaming skin, but her lips
drew back and one hand clapped to her knife. He thought that the sea bottom was no further away
than a signal to her crew. Finally she exclaimed, "Is it the new fashion on Terra to insult a
hostess? Well you know it's nay a matter of inborn brain, but of skill. The Lubbers are reared
from birth to handle monies. But how many of 'em can handle a rigging-or even name the lines?
Can you?"
Flandry's unfairness had been calculated. So was his refusal to meet her reply squarely.
"Well," he said, "the Empire tries to respect local law and custom. Only the most uncivilized
practices are not tolerated."
It stung her, she bridled. Most colonials were violently sensitive to their isolation from the
Galactic mainstream. They did not see that their own societies were not backward on that
account-were often healthier-and the answer to that lay buried somewhere in the depths of human
unreasonableness. But the fact could be used.
Having angered her enough, Flandry finished coldly: "And, of course, the Empire cannot
tolerate treasonable conspiracies."
Tessa Hoorn answered him in a strained voice, "Captain, there's nay conspiring here. Free-
born folk are honest with foemen, too. It's you who put on slyness. For see you, I happened by
Altla homebound from The Kraal, and visited yon mansion for courtesies sake. When you asked
passage to Jaimovaunt, I granted it, sith such is nay refused among ocean people. But well I knew
you fared with me, liefer than fly the way in an hour or two, so you could draw me out and spy
on me. And you've nay been frank as to your reasons for guesting my country." Her deep tones
became a growl. "That's Lubber ways! You'll nay get far 'long your mission, speaking for a planet
of Lubbers and Lubberlovers!"
She drew her knife, looked at it, and clashed it back into the sheath. Down on the
quarterdeck, the crewmen stirred, a ripple of panther bodies. It grew so quiet that Flandry heard
the steady snore of the bow through murmuring waves, and the lap-lap on the hull, and the creak
of spars up in the sky.
He leaned back against a blistering bulwark and said with care: "I'm going to Jairnovaunt
because a boy died holding my hand. I want to find his parents ... " He offered her a cigarette, and
helped himself when she shook her head. "But I'm not going just to extend my personal
sympathies. Imperial expense accounts are not quite that elastic. For that matter, while we're
being honest, I admit I'd hardly invite Bubbles or Flutters to my own house."
He blew smoke; it was almost invisible in the flooding light. "Maybe you wouldn't conspire
behind anyone's back, m' lady. Come to think of it, who would conspire in front of anyone's face?
But somebody on Nyanza is hatching a very nasty egg. That kid didn't sign up when the Imperial
recruiter stopped by for glory or money: he enlisted to learn modern militechnics, with the idea of
turning them against the Empire. And he died in trampled snow, sniped by a local patriot he was
chasing. Who lured that young fellow out to die, Lightmistress? And who sneaked up a wall and
harpooned a harmless little lonely bureaucrat in his sleep? Rather more to the point, who sent that
murderer-by-stealth, and why? Really, this is a pretty slimy business all around. I should think
you'd appreciate my efforts to clean it off your planet."
Tessa bit her lip. At last, not meeting his shielded gaze, she said, "I'm nay wise of any such
plots, Captain. I won't speak 'loud 'gainst your Empire-my thoughts are my own, but it's true
we've nay suffered much more than a resident and some taxes-"
"Which were doubtless higher when every nation maintained its own defenses," said
Flandry. "Yes, we settle for a single man on worlds like this. We'd actually like to have more,
because enough police could smell out trouble before it's grown too big, and could stop the
grosser barbarities left over from independent days-"
Again she bristled. He said in a hurry: "No, please, for once that's not meant to irritate. By
and large, Nyanza looks as if it's always been quite a humane place. If you don't use all the latest
technological gimcrackery, it's because it's nonfunctional in this culture, not because you've
forgotten what your ancestors knew. I'm just enough of a jackleg engineer to see that these weird-
looking sails of yours are aerodynamic marvels; I'm certain that paraboloidal jib uses the Venturi
effect with malice aforethought. Your language is grammatically archaic but semantically
efficient. I can envision some of the bucolic poets at court going into raptures over your way of
life. And getting seasick if they tried it, but that's another story ... Therefore," he finished soberly,
"I'm afraid I'm a little more sympathetic to Hurri Chundra Bannerji, who fussed about and
established extrasystemic employment contacts for your more ambitious young men and built
breakwaters and ordered vaccines and was never admitted to your clubs, than I am sorry for you."
She looked over the side, into curling white and purple water, and said very low, "The
Empire was nay asked here."
"Neither was anyone else. The Terran Empire established itself in this region first. The
Merseian Empire would be a rather more demanding master-if only because it's still vigorous,
expansive, virtuous, and generally uncorrupted, while Terra is the easygoing opposite." That
brought her up sharply in astonishment, as he had expected. "Since the Empire must protect its
frontiers, lest Terra herself be clobbered out of the sky, we're going to stay. It would not be
advisable for some young Nyanzan firebrains to try harpooning space dreadnaughts. Anyone who
provokes such gallant idiocy is an enemy of yours as well as mine."
Her eyes were moody upon his. After a long time she asked him, "Captain, have you ever
swum undersea?"
"I've done a little skindiving for fun," he said, taken aback. He had spoken half honestly and
half meretriciously, never quite sure which sentence was one or another, and thought he had
touched the proper keys. But this surprised him.
"Nay more? And you stand all 'lone on a world that's aloof of you where it doesn't,
perchance, scheme murder? Captain, I repent me what I said 'bout your folk being Lubbers."
The relief was like a wave of weakness. Flandry sucked in his cheeks around his cigarette
and answered lightly: "They cannot do worse than shoot me, which would distress only my tailor
and my vintner. Have you ever heard that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but
once?"